B 'Strong signal' from sun-like star sparks alien speculation

An international team of researchers is now examining the radio signal and its star, HD 164595 -- described in a paper by Italian astronomer Claudio Maccone and others as a "strong candidate for SETI" -- in the hopes of determining its origin.
"The signal from HD 164595 is intriguing, because it comes from the vicinity of a sun-like star, and if it's artificial, its strength is great enough that it was clearly made by a civilization with capabilities beyond those of humankind," astronomer Douglas Vakoch.

Interesting.....

Wait though

But experts say it is highly unlikely to be a message from alien beings.

With only one signal you just can't tell, and it certainly doesn't come up to scratch as "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.". It might have been just the cleaner in the next room turning on the vacuum cleaner....

Saw this on the news last night. They had constant teasers saying that it was an alien signal, then on the actual segment, they finally stated that experts said that it was highly unlikely. I'm betting on the gravitational lensing probability.

The signal is 'coming from the vicinity' so they don't have the exact angle pegged down so it could be from another star or more likely, a reflection of something manmade at 11 Ghz, a kind of unlikely frequency for interstellar communications. They also must not have published the exact frequency because the other researchers mentioned 'we don't know the right frequency' so they have to hunt and peck around to find anything.

11 Ghz is suspiciously close to man made radar and planetary probe frequencies so it could just be a signal bouncing off a moon or satellite. News at 11 I guess.

If the frequency turns out to be say, 11.01100000 Ghz, the number alone would indicate human origin.

It would be more speculative if it was say 11.023210090022 Ghz or some such.

From the Wiki article:"Astronomer Nicholas Suntzeff of Texas A&M University stated that the signal is in a military frequency band, and that it could have been a satellite downlink, implying that some such systems may be kept secret and therefore would be unknown to SETI scientists."
Sounds like a plausible explanation right there. To receive such a strong signal, wouldn't an "alien civilization" have to deliberately direct it at us? That would mean they would have to be aware of our presence. Given the distance of a little over 94 light years, that seems unlikely.

When we first splurged for "good TV", we had to buy two BUDs that used C-Band... it wasn't a bad system, it was all remote controlled from our houses, and every thing ( except the initial purchase; dishes and receivers were about $3,000, or more ? ... apiece ) including "feeds" , was free...[COLOR=#black].[/COLOR]

Of course broadcasters couldn't stand that, so after awhile we had to buy these damn things ...[COLOR=#black].[/COLOR]

Lol, I went of topic a bit... and we don't use the system anymore, but they are still standing... here's picture.

How might an alien civilization 94 light years away be aware of our existence given our inability to generate a reasonably detectable signal over such distances 94 years ago?

I think you mean 188 years ago! But I believe the idea is, the aliens in question would not know we are here, they would merely see us as a good candidate and would be sending signals like that to all the good candidates. Not that this signal is anything special, I'm sure they've detected many signals like this in the past, that never amounted to anything. It must have been a slow news cycle.

How might an alien civilization 94 light years away be aware of our existence given our inability to generate a reasonably detectable signal over such distances 94 years ago?

You meant 188 years ago.

I think it's most likely a military signal. I keep hearing strong candidate. What exactly about it makes it a strong candidate? What is a strong candidate? From the distance, it's not possible that they are aware that we are a radio civilization and have sent us a response. That means that for some reason they decided to target a (to them) pre-industrial planet. Or they sent it out in all directions which would require a level II civilization. Or, we just happened to be in the middle of a signal, whats in the exact opposite position of the sky?

Things like this has got me thinking though. How many real signals will we detect before we will even be able to verify one? I imagine a inventor in a small isolated island tribe learning how to do radio communications. They'd likely detect a lot of noise from our global civilization before they realized what it was. They'd get intermittent signals from boats or planes that constantly move so can never be verified. An interstellar civilization would likely appear fairly quite unless you're directly between two "hubs." If humans set up a colony around the Barnard star, you will not be able to hear anything if listening from Alpha Centauri. You'd hear pretty much dead silence unless you happened to get right in between the stars at which point you'd probably get a deluge.

They (if there is a they) could be doing the same thing we are. Sending and listening for signals in different sections of the universe.

Sending signals might turn out to be a pretty risky business, you never know who might turn up!

Having said that we have been broadcasting powerful radio and tv transmissions into the aether for some time now (not to HD 164595 though).... wait, on second thoughts that explains why nobody has bothered to answer.